Are you looking to get a new tablet but do not want to spend $$$$?
Well this might work for you. The Tab A is the replacement to the Tab A 8 from 2019. Lets look at the Price to Performance.
Design/Unboxing:
The unboxing is uneventful. Top slide off inside you have tablet, Charger, Cable, sim card removal tool and the normal paper booklets.
Design is simple matte “Mocha” backing with a single camera in top left side and chrome Samsung logo 2/3 way down the back. The top, bottom and sides continue the matte “mocha” scheme. Top come with a lovely 3.5mm headphone jack for all you wired headphone users. Left side has your sim card/Micro SD tray. Right side you have you power button near the top with the up and down volume rock just slightly below that. Bottom shows off Couple of speaker grills and USB C for charging and data transfer.
The Front you have a 8.4″ HD display with a Selfie Camera about the display right in the middle of the bezel. No notch.
Overall clean simple design. LOVES fingerprints despite the matte “mocha” coating
Weighing in at a cool 10.9 oz or little more than a half a pound makes this a lite little guy
Product Dimensions (inches) 7.95″H x 4.93″ W x 0.28” D
The 2019 Tab A 8.27”H x 4.90”W x 0.31”D despite having a smaller screen.
Specs and other things:
When using the Tab A 8.4 it is powered by a Samsung Exynos 7 Octa 1.8GHz Dual-Core, 1.6GHz Hexa-Core.
Is has 3GB ram and 32GB of on-board storage. You can expand up to 512GB Micro SD
Solid 5000 mAh battery to help support the 8.4” 1920 x 1200 (WUXGA) display. I would get through the day with little issue. Using YouTube, surfing, and Spotify
For your mobile wireless needs it is equipped with LTE B2(1900),B3(1800),B4(AWS),
B5(850),B7(2600),B13(700),B20(800),B66(AWS-3)
The 1920 x 1200 (WUXGA) Display was Clear for video and photo with beautiful vibrant colors.
Compared to last year:
I wanted to see how this evolved since the 2019 version to let review them side by side
Tab A 8.0 (2019)
- 1280 x 800 Pixels
- 8” display
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 429 Quad-core 2Ghz
- 32GB Storage
- 2GB ram
- Camera 8mp main 2mp selfie
- 5100mAh battery
Tab A 8.4 (2020)
- 1920 X 1200 Pixels
- 8.4” display
- Samsung Exynos 7 Octa-core 1.8GHz, 1.6GHz
- 32GB Storage
- 3GB ram
- Camera 8mp main 5mp selfie
- 5000mAh battery
As you can see there has been great spec jumps. Bigger better display, more ram, Faster CPU, Camera upgrade etc. as mentioned above this newer one has a smaller footprint even though it has a larger display. This is mainly because new Tab A has much smaller bezels.
Overall performance:
As this is a budget tablet you cannot expect blazing speed and power. For most basic tasks, the unit did what it needed to do. But under medium load (3-4 apps running) it became little sluggish and would studder. I opened YouTube, Spotify, Word and Temple run. Even though they all did run ok-ish. Temple run would get a little glitchy while listening to Spotify. YouTube would take some time to load and search during this kind of usage as well.
Price:
You can grab one up through your provider or through Samsung directly for about $249.99 USD.
Overview:
Samsung Galaxy Tab A 8.4 LTE is a solid performer for the price. Its no iPad pro, Galaxy Tab S or Surface go, but its also not trying to be. The display is decent for watching movies and you tube and bright enough to use outside for the most part. It is a simple budget tablet that performs well enough for basic tasks and media consumption. Gaming is a little slow and laggy on higher end titles.
But if you want an affordable well-rounded media tablet I would recommend. Just don’t put to much pressure on it. it will get sad.
